(Headline USA) FBI agents searched through former First Lady Melania Trump’s closet and spent several hours scouring former President Donald Trump’s office in his Mar-a-Lago home during a raid on Monday.
More than 30 plainclothes agents obtained a warrant to search through the Trumps’ property for presidential records and alleged classified misinformation that had been wrongly stored there. They were in the Trumps’ home for nine hours, according to the New York Post, rifling through Melania Trump’s wardrobe and Donald Trump’s office safe.
Several boxes were removed from the premises, which allegedly contained documents and mementos from Trump’s presidency, including letters from former President Barack Obama and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
However, a source close to Trump said there is a concern that FBI agents involved in the raise “planted stuff,” because they would not allow Trump’s attorneys to observe the operation. The three Justice Department lawyers who accompanied the FBI were described by one eyewitness as “arrogant.”
“We have full access to everything,” they reportedly told Trump’s representatives. “We can go everywhere.”
The federal agents even tried to force Trump’s team to switch off the security cameras – but Trump’s representatives refused.
Republicans have blasted the FBI’s raid as an irresponsible abuse of authority, and have vowed to launch an investigation into if if they retake control of Congress this November.
“The FBI raid was unprecedented for America, but familiar to those in Florida who fled nations where political opposition was criminalized,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., currently the ranking minority member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
“If voters put us back in the majority, we better have the guts to subpoena the records [and] make those who authorized this testify under oath.”
Rubio’s House counterpart, Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, wrote a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray demanding a brieifing on the matter, Fox News reported.
“I am unaware of any actual or alleged national security threat posed by any information, data, or documents in the possession of former President Trump,” Turner wrote on Monday.
